Cambridge Primary Checkpoint 0846 · Topic 4 of 10

Plants

The parts of a flowering plant and their jobs, what plants need to grow, photosynthesis, and the life cycle of a flowering plant.

📌 Key points

Roots hold the plant in the soil and take in water and minerals.
The stem holds the plant up and carries water and minerals from the roots to the leaves.
Leaves make food for the plant by photosynthesis, using light energy from the Sun.
In photosynthesis, a plant uses carbon dioxide from the air, water and light to make sugar (its food) and oxygen.
Plants need light, water, air and a suitable temperature to grow well. Minerals from the soil keep them healthy.
Flowers are for reproduction. The stamen makes pollen (male part) and the carpel contains the ovules (female part).
Pollination is when pollen moves to the stigma, carried by insects or by the wind.
After fertilisation, seeds form. Seeds are dispersed (spread) by wind, animals, water or by pods bursting open.
The life cycle of a flowering plant: germination → growth → flowering → pollination → fertilisation → seed formation → seed dispersal.

Photosynthesis: How green plants make their own food (sugar) using light, water and carbon dioxide.
Chlorophyll: The green substance in leaves that traps light energy.
Pollination: The transfer of pollen from a stamen to a stigma.
Germination: When a seed starts to grow into a new plant.
Seed dispersal: The spreading of seeds away from the parent plant.
Stamen: The male part of a flower that makes pollen.
Carpel: The female part of a flower, made of the stigma, style and ovary.

A plant is kept in a dark cupboard for two weeks. Its leaves turn yellow and it stops growing. Explain why.

Plants need light to make their food by photosynthesis.
In the dark, the leaves cannot photosynthesise, so the plant cannot make sugar.
Without food the plant cannot grow, and the leaves lose their green chlorophyll.
Answer: with no light there is no photosynthesis, so the plant has no food to grow.

💡 Test tip

Learn what photosynthesis needs (light, water, carbon dioxide) and what it makes (sugar and oxygen). Many questions test this.

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